The Protege

And then, just when I thought I was getting good at hoops, along comes this guy.

At only 2, he can legitimately dribble the ball...

And then out at Papa's last weekend, this happened.

By the way, love Papa's reaction. Though in all seriousness, that was a pretty sweet jump shot from 4-5 feet out, and I'd have to say after two weeks of hoops camp they would be pretty impressed with his form.

Hoops Camp 2015

Dad signed me up for a 2-week hoops camp at Whitney Young high school in the city. He wanted me to get introduced to the game and I signed up with my bestie Shea so he and Shea's dad also thought we'd have a great time together, which we totally did.

And thus began my basketball career.

Here's the thing though, we walked in to the gym and there were about 80 kids there... 76 of them boys and most between the ages of 9-12 (some even older than that). Dad brought us on the first day to get us settled in and so he told Shea and me to grab a ball and start bouncing and passing it to each other... meanwhile he sat in these stands wondering if he got me in over my head.

But all was good. After a little bit of a tough stretch (no pun intended) during calisthenics, where I had absolutely no idea what anyone was doing, we broke off into mini groups and Shea and I landed together in the Prep Group. It was there we played King of the Hill, which is basically 1-1 and the person who scores stays on and the person who doesn't goes off.

Here's the thing: I couldn't get the ball up to the rim so I was never King or Queen of the Hill. That said, I had a ton of fun and LOVED playing defense.

Here's a boy who was in the Prep Group with us and Dad called him mini-me. He was nine but really really small and skinny with a white mop, hence the name.

We broke off and did some dribbling drills, which were hilarious because Coach Taylor told us to go to the first cone and then dribble it through our legs... I looked at dad with a big smile and lip sync'd "I can't even fit the ball through my legs."

Anyway, it was a really fun two-week camp. A couple times I started to think 3 hours a day was a bit much (it was) but Shea and I made it all the way through and we both actually made a basket during our 2-week run. As in: big ball through 10-foot hoop. We were pretty proud of ourselves.

Since we were the smallest of the crew the campers and the coaches treated us like gold all camp long.  And then, at the end, well, they made kind of a big deal about us. They made this tunnel that was the length of half the court and they put on some awesome music and they had us run through it while they cheered us on to the finish line.

That was the flip book version. Here's the real life version. And you can see my buddy Shea come flying through after me.

After that Coach Snyder's wife, the nicest woman on the planet who took care of us with anything we needed when we were there on our own, gave us a medal, a certificate and a really sweet orange t-shirt. And a hug, most importantly.

Here's to girl power!

And my photo editor's lasting memory from camp that will forever be embedded in his mind.

Next up: Mae has requested ice skating lessons in the fall. Here's to hockey season!

Piano Recital 2015

I had my piano recital a couple weeks ago. It's like old hat by now.

Daddio Day

So we celebrated Daddio Day a couple weeks ago and here's a little recap. We had our cousins - Eli and Isaiah - hanging with us as they had spent the night so we woke up and went to Maggie Daley park, then we had lunch and headed out to Nana and Papa's for the day. There, we found more than 30 frogs with our cousin Sophie and spent the day taking care of them and then let them go at the end of the day before we went home (Nana's rule. Don't tell her I said this but we think it's a stupid one, her worst by far. We really wanted to take a couple back to the city with us. Also, Mae cried really hard when she let hers go. His name was Pork Chop, he was special).

But before all that, we took a few minutes to recognize dear old dad (stress the word "old" there) and gave him the cards we made.

Mae went first... because she's the most impatient person on Earth, but whatever.

Pax was up next. Take a look at the photo and then we'll talk about some of the things going on.

First of all, we do not normally dress Pax like he's a grandmother in her nightshirt. I don't remember exactly but it was very likely one of two things: 1) He had just eaten and proceeded to spill immense amounts of food and drink on his clothes and we grabbed the closest thing we could find, which was my t-shirt, or 2) he was naked, likely outside in the backyard, and before we did cards he needed to be covered up, so we grabbed the closest thing we could find, which was my t-shirt. 

Likely #2.

The second thing going on in this photo is that someone OBVIOUSLY has to go to the bathroom. This is common for Mae. You can often find her either doing this or what we call The Pee-Pee Dance, where she's literally hopping around and squirming and it looks like she's dancing to a very strange beat.

Back to the card giving. After that it was my turn to give Dad his card and then I wanted to get a picture with just him but Mae wouldn't let that happen because she felt the need to be in the picture too. It's not like you can see my disgust reflected on my face or anything.

Okay, I'm over it. Much better.

Lastly, I'd like to show you what I believe is the most creative card either purchased or created for Father's Day... IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

As mentioned, my cousin Isaiah stayed the night, so he was up the night before pretty late making his card. After a couple mishaps and a little frustration he took a breath and started over. Obviously a huge Blackhawks fan, by the time he went to bed that night he had created this masterpiece.

For those of you who do not know, that is a picture of the Stanley Cup, won by our beloved NHL Champion Chicago Blackhawks just a couple weeks before this card was created.

Grandpa's Bday... Pax's Bday Suit

So Grandpa and Grandma came yesterday to pick us up and take us back to Nebraska for the week and specifically the July 4th celebration in Arapahoe (Mom's hometown, where Gma and Gpa still live).

But we wanted to do a little celebration for Grandpa because his birthday is coming up.

So we got a few pies from Hoosier Mama and got ready to sing.

And then Grandpa blew out his candles...

And then the party got a little rowdy. And by rowdy I mean Pax was, of course, already in his birthday suit because of his general disdain for having clothes on of any kind. So well dressed in his birthday hat... and only his birthday hat... he joined us for the rest of the celebration. Last minute someone snagged a paper towel to make this photo legal.

It was, as is always the case with Pax, hilarious.

Summer Summer Summer Time

That's a line from a famous Will Smith song. And by famous, I mean, not really that famous (or good for that matter), but anyway, appropriate for this post.

Thought I'd give you a little update as to the goings-on this Summer so far, as it's been quite fun.

We had a St. Helen Father's Club outing at the White Sox game, which was awesome on a lot of fronts:

1. I got to eat a TON of junk food because all the other kids were and mom and dad got really tired of negotiating with us (Mabel more than me, she's relentless) so cookies and cotton candy and all kinds of other junk was consumed, and it was fun.

2. I got to hang with my homegirls - that's JoJo on the left and Shea on the right.

3. Pax got his first baseball game of his life under his belt.

It's also been quite a chill Summer so far, lots of fun on the weekdays with our nanny Julianna, lots of chilling out fun on the weekends.

Some sprinkler time for the young's and then the below shot, for example, is what we call our Backyard City Golf Course. A bucket, some mini clubs, and see who can chip it in first.

It wasn't all chill, though. We had a very stressful Stanley Cup run with our Blackhawks, who turned out victorious (if you've been living on the moon the past month). Nana saved some newspaper cut outs for me and I, in turn, decked out my room with my favorite players (Kane, then Crawford, if you're wondering. And Kane is not pictured because Papa didn't get the paper that day).

Dress up has been on the docket, both with ourselves and at a sleepover we went to at Ana and Sid's. Sid made a fantastic Hawai'in Santa Claus. Hm, I don't think I've ever written the word Hawai'in before in my entire life. I know it's wrong because that little red dotted line is underneath the word (and also because there's no way it has an apostrophe in it) but guess what - I'm not going to fix it. I'm not going to go to Google right now and try to type it in and see what comes up. You know why? Because I don't care. I don't think I'll ever write it again at this point so who cares. 

So you'd think I would be done about now, right? That looks like a pretty full first 2-3 weeks of the Summer, on top of piano lessons, reading camp and all the rest of it. Well, it's not.

We've done picnics

And parks

And played our fair share of games.

We've chilled out with our best pal (and sometimes worst enemy)

And our best pals when Isaiah and Eli came down last weekend.

And last but not least, we had a visitor who is royalty. That's right, Buddy came to town. Nana and Papa went to visit Uncle Paul in Connecticut so instead of boarding Buddy (I feel like that could be a name of a movie - "Boarding Buddy") we took the little rascal in and he spent the week with us.

Needless to say it was amazing. He was chill and we snuggled with him a lot (that's him taking his paw and resting it on Mae's foot unprompted while she stood there, like he wanted to hold her hand) and Mae fed him at breakfast and I fed him at lunch and we took tons of walks with him...

And then we left for a little too long and he tore up the recycles trying to get after the empty box of chicken broth which still had some remnants on it. (Uncle Brian took that photo. He just thought it was hilarious that dad had to clean up such a mess).

And when we found him he was like this... just chilling in his bed with an empty beer can in his mouth. Good to know Buddy can sit back and enjoy the Summer with a cold one too.

They Don't Call It "Great" For Nothing

Made the annual trip back to Six Flags last week. Went with one of my besties - Shea, her dad and my dad.

The park was literally empty. We never stood in line for more than ten minutes, which means we rode about every ride we could ride and in the neighborhood of 4-5 times each. A lot of the rides they never even made us get off.

We don't have a lot of good ride pictures because dad's phone died, but let's get started.

This is The Orbit. Goes super duper fast and then tilts upside down so you're going in a huge circle at top speeds. Shea and I rode this nearly ten times throughout the whole day.

We played some games, which were really fun, too; this one in particular. Shea went first, trying to walk that ladder all the way to the top. 

It was all quite a hoot watching it go down.

And then it was my turn. I made it all the way to the top and won a 5-foot tall stuffed penguin! No, I didn't.

But we did get these out of the deal.

We spent 11 hours at the park, so naturally there was a lot of really fun chillin' out as well. Pics by the pool, some ice cream and shared lemonade...

And what we called The Cement Picnic. We laughed at how different the lunch and dinner experience would have been if the moms had been in the mix (no offense dads).

Then Dad pulled one over on me a little bit. I think he wanted to up the ante from last year when I went on The Demon so many times, so we went on The Eagle. Had I known what I was getting into I probably would've passed this up. But I'm still alive and now I have this puppy under my belt.

This next pic is pre-ride. You can see a little apprehension in that smile but trust me, this was much better than if we did a post-ride pic. Not. Happy.

Eagle Selfie!!

Lastly, I'll show you our favorite non-rollercoaster ride. This one is called The Fiddler's Fling. It goes a million miles an hour and throws you out towards the side of the car as it spins. This puppy really gets moving, as you'll see.  

And after a loooooong day running around Six Flags with our dad, here's a recap of the conversation that ensued as Dad started the car in the parking lot.

Fin: I'm going to sleep in like 2 minutes
Shea: Me too, maybe even faster

... ... ... 90 seconds later...

So that's that. I think when they named this park they could've gone in a few different directions, but what they COULDN'T have named it was "Good America" because, well, it's pretty freakin' Great!